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Good morning, A general once said: ‘It is easier to make war than it is to make peace.’ And it’s true: war seems to have an energy, an inexorable quality; while peace often stumbles through the rubble, trying to find its way. And as this week’s anti-war protests on US campuses have shown, peaceful protest is harder than it looks. The students have been mocked by some for their idealism and naivety. And criticised for importing someone else’s conflict. But now that conflict has come to home in form of a face-off between them and their own authorities. Keeping the peace under these circumstances is proving a serious test of their commitment, requiring real restraint and no little courage. These students may have thought that pitching a tent on a campus lawn was as uncomfortable as things were going to get, but they will know, from their own history, that anti-war protestors in the 60s were teargassed and even shot whilst conducting peaceful protest. Let us hope it doesn’t come to this. Like their forebears the students are essentially protesting about the apparatus war and asking that their institutions distance themselves from any collusion with it. War is the greatest form of violence and the least restrained. In the fog, people lose their bearings. War gets away with things – it erodes human rights, it elevates aggression and makes a virtue of violent action; it treats persons as less than persons and the resultant dehumanization facilitates even more violence. How can we establish a lasting shalom in the face of such a force; in a world where arms deals are approved far more quickly than peace treaties? An intelligent pursuit of peace would certainly have us follow the example of peacemakers: when you demonstrate, do it peacefully and pursue a steady engagement with the issues. Remember that your opponent is a person! Resist polarisation by humanising the arguments. And use your imagination: If war first springs in people’s minds, then so too can peace. Perhaps, above all, exercise restraint. Resist the strong men, the oppressors, the occupiers , the mob, the mockers, the indifferent, the violent. If Christ had a superpower, it was probably restraint. He is known as The Prince of Peace for a reason. It was said he had the power to strike back. But, even in the face of massive attack and psychological provocation from the authorities, He kept it in check. Instead, He demonstrated non-violent resistance to violent power, keeping his peace to the very end. Such restraint is the superpower the world could use right now. As opposing sides provoke each other, the security forces close in on the campuses, and the tanks amass at Rafah, let us hope the people protesting and those who disagree with them can keep their peace.